1. Field
The following description relates to a communication method and apparatus, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus to communicate through multicast.
2. Description of Related Art
A single transmission apparatus transmits content to a plurality of reception apparatuses using various transmission schemes, for example, a data sharing scheme based on multi-unicast, and a multicast scheme based on a minimum data rate.
In the data sharing scheme, a transmission apparatus divides radio resources, and allocates the divided radio resources to each of a plurality of reception apparatuses. The transmission apparatus transmits content to each of the reception apparatuses using the allocated radio resources. To transmit the same content to the reception apparatuses, each of the allocated radio resources may be used to transmit the content to a single reception apparatus.
Radio resources may be divided by, for example, at least one of time division, frequency division, and code division. The time division may be, for example, time division multiple access (TDMA). The frequency division may be, for example, frequency division multiple access (FDMA). The code division may be, for example, code division multiple access (CDMA).
In the multicast scheme, a transmission apparatus may simultaneously transmit, that is, multicast content to a plurality of reception apparatuses. To successfully receive the content, a data rate of each of the reception apparatuses may need to be adjusted. For example, the transmission apparatus may adjust a data rate to multicast the content to a minimum data rate among data rates of the reception apparatuses. However, when content is transmitted and played back in real time, a quality of content received by the reception apparatuses may be reduced due to a limit on a data rate.
When the above schemes are used, division of radio resources or a data rate, content transmission may have limitations, such as lower quality in content reception.